Washington Post: Ukraine started using cluster munitions.
The American newspaper Washington Post has reported that Ukraine has started using cluster munitions provided by the United States.
Kyiv has begun firing U.S.-provided cluster munitions at Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine in hopes of breaking Russian entrenchments that have slowed Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive, according to familiar Ukrainian officials.
The American newspaper Washington Post reported in this regard that the use of these controversial weapons by the United States, which had not been reported before, followed the controversial decision last week by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to send banned cluster munitions to Ukraine.
Biden’s decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine brought a lot of negative reactions, with human rights groups, America’s European allies, and some Democrats in Congress criticizing this decision due to the risk of escalating civilian casualties.
Referring to cluster munitions, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday threatened to retaliate against Ukraine “if they (Ukraine) use them against us.”
Outlawed in more than 120 countries, cluster bombs detonate in mid-air over a target, releasing dozens to hundreds of smaller bombs over an area the size of several football fields. Children are particularly vulnerable because unexploded bombs pose a risk for decades.
This news has been published while the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed the receipt of the cluster bomb on Tuesday of this week and said that the country’s army is using these weapons against Russian troops on its soil.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the West wants to hurt Moscow with the help of Kyiv, and said that the war in Ukraine will continue until the Western countries stop thinking about their domination and imposing a strategic defeat on Russia.
A Ukrainian official, who asked not to be named, told The Washington Post that cluster munitions were fired at Russian positions to break the country’s fortifications, which have slowed Ukraine’s counterattacks to retake the territories.
The United States earlier this month approved sending cluster munitions to Kyiv, and President Joe Biden called the move a temporary measure to allow military production to keep up with a sharp increase in demand as both Washington and Kyiv face shortages of conventional and conventional munitions.
